r
fit for the sheepfold or the cloister is ill qualified to exact respect
where it is yielded with reluctance; and since Heaven refused us a third
boy, Lucy should have held a character fit to supply his place. The
hour will be a happy one which disposes her hand in marriage to some one
whose energy is greater than her own, or whose ambition is of as low an
order."

So meditated a mother to whom the qualities of her children's hearts,
as well as the prospect of their domestic happiness, seemed light in
comparison to their rank and temporal greatness. But, like many a parent
of hot and impatient character, she was mistaken in estimating
the feelings of her daughter, who, under a semblance of extreme
indifference, nourished the germ of those passions which sometimes
spring up in one night, like the gourd of the prophet, and astonish
the observer by their unexpected ardour and intensity. In fact, Lucy's
sentiments seemed chill because nothing had occurred to interest or
awaken them. Her life had hitherto flowed on in a uniform and gentle
tenor, and happy for her had not its present smoothness of current
resembled that of the stream as it glides downwards to the waterfall!

"So, Lucy," said her father, entering as her song was ended, "does your
musical philosopher teach you to contemn the world before you know it?
That is surely something premature. Or did you but speak according to
the fashion of fair maidens, who are always to hold the pleasures of
life in contempt till they are pressed upon them by the address of some
gentle knight?"

Lucy blushed, disclaimed any inference respecting her own choice
being drawn from her selection of a song, and readily laid aside her
instrument at her father's request that she would attend him in his
walk.

A large and well-wooded park, or rather chase, stretched along the
hill behind the castle, which, occupying, as we have noticed, a pass
ascending from the plain, seemed built in its very gorge to defend
the forest ground which arose behind it in shaggy majesty. Into this
romantic region the father and daughter proceeded, arm in arm, by a
noble avenue overarched by embowering elms, beneath which groups of the
fallow-deer were seen to stray in distant perspective. As they paced
slowly on, admiring the different points of view, for which Sir
William Ashton, notwithstanding the nature of his usual avocations, had
considerable taste and feeling, they were overtaken by the forester,
or